


Ivory Luck

by Lady_Anonymia



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Agent!Jack, Agent!Mark, Alternate Universe - Federal Agents, Ambiguous/Open Ending, But like minor plot twists, Cause if so I need to find it, Criminal!Marzia, Double Agents, F/M, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Interrogation, Is there a manual for how to tag, It's just shock collar torture, M/M, Non-Consensual Electroconvulsive Therapy, Organized Crime, Original Agencies, Plot Twists, Reunions, agent!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 16:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11512878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Anonymia/pseuds/Lady_Anonymia
Summary: “Good morning, Seán. Or should I call you Jack? You seem to go more by your given name these days, but I would not consider myself one for formalities.”Though Jack kept his face blank and his mouth closed, his heart stopped. The last time he’d heard that voice, it had been through a video message, listing off to the entire Bureau the names of 21 agents they had murdered in an explosion. Mark Fischbach’s name had been among the dead.--------Jack is an agent working for the Global Protection Bureau, trying to protect a woman from being killed by her ruthless former "employer." But what happens when he finds out he might be working for the wrong side?





	Ivory Luck

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly just want this story ouT OF MY HOUSE.  
> It's been in the works for AT LEAST a month and it's high time I let it go free.  
> Un-beta'd, as I didn't want to show it to anyone, so apologies for any grammar or spelling errors!

_Running. Always running from something, someone. His heart was beating out of his chest, and his lungs were burning, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t even turn back to see what he was leaving behind. Horrible, horrible things would happen if he did. The barren wasteland surrounding him was a battlefield: gunshots, and screaming. Bloodless people fell around him, their eyes open, pleading for an answer to their suffering._

_Tears fell down his face. Why was he crying? He was away from the chaos, away from all the confusion. Had he left something? Had he left someone?_

_He glanced behind him for a second, and as soon as he did, he saw the thing that was chasing him. A giant wave of thick crimson barreled down the dusty roads, absorbing buildings and passerby. He didn’t have long to panic about the wave. He was falling._

_Down, into an eternal black void, not feeling, not moving, not even breathing. Nothing._

_Then he hit the ground._

Jack stirred, blinking a few times to pull himself out of the nightmare. Though darkness greeted him, he wasn’t uneasy. He was used to this type of pitch black ever since he'd gotten blackout curtains installed in the office. Every muscle in his body felt stiff, not to mention he was sitting up. What, had he stayed late again?

He cracked his neck, yawning a little, and reached up to run his fingers through his hair. It was a nervous tick of sorts, and he’d found himself doing it more and more often. However, when he tried to, his wrist strained against something that was keeping him in place.

Momentarily startled, he struggled futilely against his bonds. He bent down and tried to bite them off his wrists and his teeth met smooth plastic. He was being restrained to a chair with zip ties. Whoever had strapped him here had also been smart enough to put the locking mechanism on the bottom of the armrest, so that Jack had no way of biting it off.

Breathing deeply, he tried to calm down and assess his situation. _Just like at the Academy,_ he thought. _You didn’t make it as an agent because you freaked out every time something went wrong. Take a deep breath. You can do this, Jackaboy._

He closed his eyes and took a moment to explore his new prison with his senses. There were 8 pressure points—8 zip-tie restraints—keeping him to the chair. Each ankle and wrist was zip-tied, as well as halfway up his forearms and legs. There was nothing holding his back to the seat, and Jack could move his torso quite freely. His hands hung just over the armrests. The thing that bothered him most, however, was the fact that Jack could not feel a blindfold on his face and yet could see nothing but blackness. He didn’t seem to be seriously injured: although there were a few painful spots here and there and a dull ache behind his eyes, he couldn’t taste blood and didn’t feel faint. There was no substance he could think of that caused blindness with no other symptoms, which worried him even more.

His lack of vision made it hard for him to assess his surroundings, but a quick tap on the floor told him that the floor was made of wood, not concrete. A tap on the chair told him the chair was made of the same material. The echo of a clock’s sudden chime told him that the room wasn’t exceptionally tall or large, as there was no real reverberation. The space wasn’t drafty or unusually cold; in fact, it was a little warm for Jack’s liking. If someone was expecting to get information out of him, this wasn’t a very intimidating environment in which to do so.

Speaking of which, why had he been brought here in the first place? Jack knew he was still in his civilians’ clothes, so there was no way they had caught him in the middle of a mission. With this thought came even more questions. Where had he been captured in the first place? After the five or ten minutes it had been since he’d regained consciousness, his memory should have been coming back to him. However, he found he could only remember a few moments before now.

 _Jack was walking alongside Signe down the plaza. After being trapped in the issued apartment for so long, she had begged Jack relentlessly to let her go outside. Though he had initially refused—the rules in place for witness protection were pretty strict, and for good reason—she had hammered him down until he agreed. That was one of the many things he’d grown to love about Signe: her determination. She really never gave up, and it was admirable to see that sort of attitude from someone being chased by an infamous crime lord—or crime lady, as it were._  

_“Look, Seán, it's a little park! We should go over there,” she said, pulling at his hand in the direction of the vacant playground._

_“Half of those things you wouldn't even fit on, Signe.”_

_“I only need to fit on the swings! Those are the best part. I'm going over there, Seán, and you can't stop me.”_

_“Wouldn’t have tried to,” Jack laughed. “You’re quite a force to be reckoned with.”_

_“Damn right,” she replied, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Race you!”_

_She took off running, cackling as she went, and Jack shook his head fondly and chased after her._

_Signe looked back at him, and her short brown hair whipping about her face. “Can’t catch me, Seán!”_

_Jack’s feet pounded on the grass, and he let out a yelp as his foot caught on a pit in the dirt. The last thing he saw was Signe’s furrowed brow as the ground zoomed upwards, and a bolt of pain shot through his head as the darkness absorbed him._

After that, everything was hazy and blurred. He could recall some flashes of color or loud noises, but not enough to draw any solid conclusions about where he was or why. Jack assumed he had been taken hostage for some reason, but by who? There were so many possibilities. Jack worked at the Global Protection Bureau, and as a worldwide agency for peace and justice, the GBP had no shortage of enemies. Neo-KGB, ISIS, Red Roomers—

_Click, click, click, click._

“Good morning, Seán. Or should I call you Jack? You seem to go more by your given name these days, but I would not consider myself one for formalities.”

Though Jack kept his face blank and his mouth closed, his heart stopped. The last time he’d heard that voice, it had been through a video message, listing off to the entire Bureau the names of 21 agents they had murdered in an explosion. Mark Fischbach’s name had been among the dead.

“Silence? Alright. I suppose I will call you Jack, then. Now, Jack,” the soft voice began moving closer to him, “I am going to put a needle into your arm, and when I do, I don’t want you to move. The drug I am administering to you will return your sight.”

Reluctantly, he resisted the urge to choke someone when he felt the uncomfortable pinch of the needle going into his upper arm. The painful sensations he had been expecting from the drug never came. After a few blinks, his sight had fully cleared. At least she wasn’t going to lie about everything.

As soon as the black spots stopped dotting his vision, Jack took stock of his surroundings. They were in what looked to be some sort of attic—Jack followed the steep slope of the ceiling with his eyes—however, it was well-maintained and fully furnished. Hardwood floors, woven rugs, expensive looking pieces of art, the works. Light streamed in through three windows lining the left wall, revealing a cobbled street laden with street lamps, parked cars, and people. This looked more like a millionaire’s second home than a criminal hideout.

The woman in front of him was familiar, though he’d never had the misfortune of meeting her in person before now. Thin, with long brown hair, and large brown doe eyes. Holding a china teacup and saucer delicately, and even from here, Jack could smell lavender and chamomile. The word Jack thought of when he looked at her was not “criminal.” Though she was considerably shorter than him, she sat with an air that insinuated otherwise. She knew she was in charge here, and she was looking at him like a predator at its next meal, if a predator wore peplum skirts and winged eyeliner.

The woman smiled at him genially. “Do you know who I am?” she asked, the Italian lilt just as recognizable as it had been the day the Bureau had gotten word of their missing fellows.

Silence.

“You are allowed to talk, I certainly won’t do anything to you if you’d like to say something,” she said, looking at him curiously, her head cocked to the side.

Jack narrowed his eyes. “Where did you get the drug from? Your boyfriend, right?”

The woman tittered, taking her left hand off the saucer and placing it elegantly over her mouth. Jack immediately spotted the diamond-encrusted silver band on her ring finger.

“Husband, now, as I’m sure you can see,” she responded, presenting her hand to him so he could see it better. It was a beautiful ring, a flawless ring, on the finger of a woman who was far from flawless. “Yes, he’s a very talented man. But enough about me, or rather, back to me, I suppose.” She giggled again. “I would like you to answer my question, for what it’s worth.”  

Jack set his jaw and didn’t respond.

The woman looked at him expectantly. “I’m waiting.”

“Fuck you.”

The woman took a dainty sip of her tea and clicked her tongue at him, shaking her head. She set the saucer and cup on the side table.

“I did not want to have to do this, Jack,” she sighed, standing again and retrieving something behind him. As she walked, her wedged sandals clicked on the hardwood floor. “I honestly see no point in hurting you. However, I’m afraid you have ‘forced my hand’, as they say.”

The _click-click-click_ approached him again and he felt the wispy ends of her hair touch the back of his neck. His muscles stiffened. Jack was acutely aware of what this woman was capable of, despite her appearance. He did not want to be near her for any longer than he had to, if at all, and certainly not this close.

Something black swung over his shoulder. Short, and made of plastic. A collar of some sort; if Jack had to make a wild guess, a shock collar. The woman’s other hand came into view as she grabbed the other side of the collar and brought it around his neck. Hard, manicured nails scratched his skin as she secured the collar around his neck, and attempted to slip a finger under it to ensure it was tight enough.

When she sat back down, she was holding a small black controller in her hand. The same thin-lipped smile was still on her face as she fiddled with the controls.

“Now, we begin your interrogation, hm?” She made eye contact with Jack, and the fire behind her eyes was raging. “I will ask you a question, and if you answer incorrectly, or keep me waiting, or I feel that your answer is...insufficient, then—”

Pain exploded in Jack’s head as he convulsed from the strong shock. The muscles in his arms contracted painfully. He could practically smell the singed hair.

The woman set the controller down and picked her china saucer back up. “Hopefully I will not have to do that to you many times. I believe the human body can only stand ten shocks of that voltage before something in the brain is permanently damaged.” She sipped the tea thoughtfully, before setting the saucer back on the table and picking up the controller again. “Now, let us try this once more, shall we? All you have to do is tell me who I am. It’s very simple.”

A moment of silence passed. As much as Jack would have wanted to spite the well-dressed monster, he was inclined to believe her claim about the limit of shocks he could receive, having experienced it once already.

“Marzia Bisognin, 26,” he started, through gritted teeth. “Bisognin-Kjellberg, I suppose.”

“Good start. I see you’re paying attention,” the woman acquiesced. “Is there anything else you know? After all, I know quite a bit about you, and by the sound of it, you know nothing about me. I do like to make sure that my...guests and I are on a somewhat equal footing. ”

“You don't know anything about me,” Jack sneered.

“Wrong,” Marzia called, and pressed the button again, and another bolt of pain shot through his skull. He shook his head violently to try and get rid of the colored dots in his eyes, but it only made the headache brought on by the shock worse. “If I were you I would focus on what you know, not what I know.”

“You're a cat burglar and hired assassin previously, now co-ruler of the self-proclaimed Ivory Luck Association. The mind behind the ILA’s more complex schemes and their money management. Skilled with a blade. Runs a human trafficking operation.” At the last sentence, he narrowed his eyes at her critically, looking for any sign of faltering. The fact that she was almost single-handedly orchestrating the exchange of women wasn’t well known. However, her expression did not change to one of shock or even anger. Instead, she smiled coyly.

“Well, now,” she cooed, “I was told you were well informed, but I hardly expected to be surprised by your knowledge. It seems even I was in the dark about the reach of your agency’s intelligence. Or, perhaps, you have another source?”

Jack didn’t say anything, didn’t even hint at his inner feelings, but he was panicking just a little. Signe, of course, was the person who had informed the Bureau about Bisognin’s human trafficking, as she had been involved with of it before agreeing to work with them if they kept her and the rest of her family safe and away from the ILA. Signe’s death had had to be faked so that Marzia wouldn’t come after her again.

“I assume you tortured one of my girls, yes?”

“We’re not sadists like you, Bisognin.”

“So, you didn’t torture her. I’m impressed you were able to exhibit so much restraint.” Jack bared his teeth. “In that case, you’ve taken her in and she’s simply told you everything you need to know.”

“We don’t have any first-hand sources,” Jack replied, a bald-faced lie; by the look on Marzia’s face, she’s fully aware of that. The familiar shock pulses through Jack, tensing all the muscles in his body: no reason to fight it at that point, so Jack just let it roll through his body.

“Somehow, I don’t believe that.” The woman gave him a regretful look. “I want to be honest with you, but you have to be honest with me, too.”

“That is the truth,” Jack hissed through his teeth, bracing himself for the inevitable shock. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She raised her perfectly arched eyebrows at him, almost appraisingly. “I admire your loyalty,” she said, a tinge of respect in her voice, before shocking him yet again.

Through the resurgence of pain, Jack dimly realizes his fingers are starting to go numb from the electricity. _That’s probably not a good thing,_ he thought.

From the handbag next to her, Marzia pulled a few sheets of folded paper. It just showed Jack how planned this entire scenario was, how there was a script that he was unwillingly following.

Carefully, she straightened the crease in the photos on the table and held the first out for Jack to see clearly. He unconsciously grit his teeth. It was obviously a photo that had been taken by a security camera. In it, he and a woman much shorter than him walked through an airport. The woman had red hair, and they were both wearing sunglasses. His hair had been dyed green. The picture must have been from last year: his hair had been its natural graying brown since then.

Marzia’s eyes flitted to Jack’s face, scanning for any change in expression. Jack resisted the urge to spit at her.

The next photo was a picture of he and a woman again. To the untrained eye, it was a different woman. Her hair was much shorter and platinum blond with blue tips. They were holding hands.

The final picture was the most recent. The woman’s hair was brown and shoulder-length. They were both wearing glasses now instead of sunglasses. He recognized the place as the same plaza from his last memory.

“Now, you have already said you don’t know anything about a witness protection for one of my previous workers. That’s fine, of course, but I kept seeing these _pictures_. You and a woman, traversing the globe quite frequently. Using your extended leave for a little vacation, hm?” She laughed at her own joke while Jack stayed silent. His headache would’ve flared back up if he’d laughed along, assuming he’d found it funny in the first place.

“You do see how suspicious this looks to me, though. If this is not a woman I’m already familiar with, who is she?”

“...her name is Inge Nielsen,” Jack said, and since that was the fake name on all of Signe’s papers he technically wasn’t lying. He had a feeling technicalities wouldn’t go over well with Bisognin, though. “She’s one of my...associates.”

“Hm,” Marzia huffed, “I don’t think I like that answer, Jack.”

The shock didn’t even really hurt anymore, although that didn’t keep his muscles from jerking like he was having a seizure. The tingling in his fingers and toes was becoming painful, like he’d cut off circulation in them, and he couldn’t move them to try and get rid of the sensation.

“I’ve shocked you five times, Jack. With the way things are going, you’ll be leaving here in a trash bag.” Marzia leaned forward menacingly. “I’ll ask again. Who is this woman?”

“Inge Nielsen,” Jack spat. “She’s my mistress.”

“Oh, if only,” Marzia sighed, and pressed the button again. Jack didn’t know if he would ever be able to see properly again. His eyes turned the environment into a burnt photograph, a red edge around large blanks in vision.

“I recognized Signe Hansen as soon as I saw the video. Her gracefully timid shuffle is quite unique, and she stands like a soldier. There was no way you could’ve hid her from me when she was so obviously herself.” She looked at Jack thoughtfully for a moment, then continued.

“You and she are quite a nice couple,” Marzia commented idly, stacking the photos again and folding them. “I really don’t know who looked better, you and Signe or you and Mark.”

Alarm bells immediately started going off in Jack’s head. “How do you know about Mark and me?”

She tittered again, putting a hand over her mouth.  “Spoilers, I’m afraid. I don’t want to say too much just yet. But I do want you to know where you stand. We’ve known about your witness protection for Signe for at least a year now. It honestly wasn’t that hard to find you all. Dyed hair and sunglasses, in some of the busiest airports in the world? Sometimes I wonder if the Global Protection Bureau is really trying to protect anyone.”

Jack knew she was right. In fact, he’d been the one to bring up the issue to Dan, his director. They were good friends, so Jack hadn’t felt too awkward bringing it up. Even now he could remember the conversation clearly.

_“Jack, my man. Come on in, how can I help you?”_

_Jack opened the door to the lavish office, clutching a thin manila folder in his hands. Glass walls, smooth black tiles floors, the works. He wondered how much it would cost to get the rest of the office to look like this._

_As soon as Jack opened his mouth to speak, Dan held up a hand. “As soon as we come up with something else, we’ll tell you, Jack.”_

_“I wasn’t going to say anything about the explosion,” Jack pouted._

_“Even if I believed that, you’ve been asking everyone else in the building about it.” His face softened. “I know you’re looking for answers, Jack, and so are we. I promise you, as soon as we find something, you will be one of the first, if not the very first, to know.”_

_Jack scoffed. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Dan wouldn’t keep his promise; Jack knew there was nothing to find. He’d learned enough from those who had investigated; there were no leads to follow, no trails to chase. Nothing._

_“I’m serious. I wasn’t here to talk about that,” Jack said, inching towards the chair in front of Dan’s desk. Dan waved him into it casually. Sometimes Jack wondered if Dan was actually the person directing this branch of the Bureau: the image of Dan ordering people around made Jack uncomfortable._

_“What are you here about, then?” Dan asked, shifting in the chair. Maybe Jack was overanalyzing a little, but Dan looked very nervous._

_“I want to talk about Signe.”_

_“The girl that we rescued from Denmark, right?”_

_“Yeah. I was looking over the outlined travel path, and if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to get us killed.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_Jack opened the folder, placing the map inside on the table. “Madrid, Copenhagen, fucking London...these are all places that would attract crazy amounts of attention. Not to mention we’re moving every few months. Wouldn’t it be safer to stay somewhere secluded and just wait it out?”_

_“I have it on good authority that—”_

_“Whose authority, Dan? Every single time I come in here questioning something, you say you ‘have it on good authority’ that whatever you’re doing is the right thing. And, whether I was still skeptical or not, I did whatever it was, because I trusted you. But now someone else is involved.” Jack slid out a headshot of Signe from the folder. “We’re supposed to be_ protecting _her. This”—Jack tapped the folder with a finger—“is not going to keep her safe. Not from Bisognin and her hounds. Unless that's the goal, and you’ve got some elaborate plan to hand Signe over that I don’t know about.”_

_“There’s no plan, Jack, don’t be ridiculous. Of course we want you to be safe, man.”_

_“It’s not me I’m worried about.”_

_Dan sighed. “Listen, I know you’ve been...distraught since the explosion. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to let your emotions affect the way you see her.”_

_Jack’s eyes widened accusingly, disbelievingly. “_ That’s _what you got out of this? You think I’m trying to rebound with a witness after Mark died? After he was murdered by the ILA?”_

_Dan gave him a look like he wanted to deny it but couldn’t._

_“If you’re so worried about it, why don’t you take me off the mission?” Jack argued._

_“I’m not taking you off because Signe obviously likes you, and there’s no point making her more uncomfortable than she has to be, considering what she’s been through. And, for the record, I’m not the one who’s worried about it: Brian is.”_

_“And you take Brian’s word over mine about_ my _mental state?”_

_“To his credit, he has a doctorate in psychology,” Dan pointed out._

_“A Ph.D. in feelings doesn’t make him a mind reader,” Jack responded, sulking._

_“No, but it gives him a hell of a lot of credibility.” Dan pressed the tips of his long fingers to his temples. “Look, just don’t get more involved than you should be, okay? You’re dismissed.”_

Jack didn’t look back on his time in the office very fondly: he much preferred being in the field. The paperwork, the bureaucratic red tape, the superiors tracking his every move: they all disappeared when he was out in the field. If he wasn’t in the office, he was in a war zone, evading threats at all times; it was a much more conducive environment for a person who preferred shooting first and asking questions later.

“So where is she?”

“Hm?” Marzia seemed to have been in a similar state of reminiscence, and turned her attention back to her victim.

“Where is Signe?” he growled. ”You wouldn’t have left her, you wouldn’t have let her get away. Where are you keeping her?”

“Patience, patience. I’m not done yet, Jack. I know your secret, it’s only fair that you know mine.”

Out of the handbag came a small book, bound with rings. It was thick, too. Marzia turned the book around so Jack could see it. She opened the cover, and the person looking back at Jack from the page was himself.

It was a photo from a black and white Polaroid camera of his face, eyes closed, hair mussed, long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks. Jack must’ve been sleeping, really sleeping: he looked more relaxed than he ever could’ve been while awake. The photographer had been sitting upright next to him, by the angle.

Marzia turned the page, and another picture, almost identical, lay in front of him. Then another. Then another. Jack could see his journey with Signe unfolding just through these pictures of him resting, the few times that he did. The sheets in the background changed, or his hair changed, but his face remained a peaceful constant.

“You’re quite cute when you’re sleeping,” Marzia giggled. “But I suppose you can’t be stoic all the time.”

Jack wasn’t an idiot, but he also didn’t want to confront the reality that was rearing its ugly head.

“Is something wrong, Jack?” Marzia asked, the worry in her face betrayed by the glee in her eyes. “You look pale.”

“It was her,” Jack whispered to himself. He felt like something in his heart had cracked. “All along she was still working for you.”

“Of course. Signe and I are very close; I would have no issue calling her a friend, although technically she works under me. In fact, she was supposed to have sedated you later in the day, but when you managed to give yourself a mild concussion she saw no harm in bringing you a little early.” Although she didn’t outright laugh, Marzia looked at Jack like he was a joke in her eyes, and in a way, he supposed that he was. “In her defense,” she continued, more kindly, “she really did come to love you.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

Marzia straightened, setting her hands on her lap and taking a deep breath. “Because I want you to join me, Jack. My organization could use someone like you.”

“You’re serious.” It was a statement, not a question.

Marzia nodded solemnly. “Deathly.” 

“And I’m assuming you’re not going to give me a day to think about it.”

“After you talk to one of my agents, I don’t think you’ll need a day to think about it, whether your final answer is positive or negative.”

Marzia picked up the walkie-talkie on the table and cleared her throat daintily before pressing the button on the side. “Felix, darling?”

“Marzia?” came the slightly static-y reply.

“Can you bring Scar down here for me, please? If he’s not out, that is. ”

‘Down here?’ Jack thought. ‘Aren’t we on the top of a house right now?’

“You got it, sweetheart,” Felix drawled on the other end. “He’ll be right down.”

Marzia set down the walkie-talkie and oriented herself to face Jack again. “He should be up in a moment,” she said, and at this point, Jack had no idea if he was up or down. He guessed it didn't really matter. “Is there anything you’d like to ask me in the meantime? There’s not a lot that I can’t tell you.”

“Why keep me alive?” Jack asked, wanting to choose his words carefully. If Marzia's 'open-book' attitude was a trap, he wasn't planning on falling into it. “And out of all of the agents at the GPB, why me?”

She gave him a wide grin. It wasn't unlike that of a shark's. “You could ask any question about me, about my agency, and you choose to ask about yourself?”

Jack swallowed and didn’t answer.

“You are alive because it was requested that we not kill you.” She tilted her head. “We chose you because it was requested we choose you.”

Jack allowed the litany of emotions he was feeling to flash across his face for a moment before he heard a knock on the door, and schooled his features into a neutral expression.

Marzia stood and glided past Jack. The turn of a knob, a small creak, then, “I’ll leave you two alone.” The door behind Jack closed again, and heavier footsteps replaced Marzia’s more graceful ones.

The person that came into Jack’s line of sight was the walking dead.

It was Mark. He looked almost the same as he had two years ago: thick, dark hair; a broad, muscular frame; kind brown eyes that showed signs of too much smiling. The only thing that had changed was his face: A long jagged scar now marred the left side of his face, starting from just under his eye to his jaw. It looked ragged, like it had been cut with a rough piece of metal or something.

“Hello, Jack.”

Jack’s throat went very dry. “Mark?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” the man in question joked weakly, then gave Jack a distressed look when he noticed what was around his neck. “Here, let me take that off you.”

Mark walked behind him and Jack felt his cool, calloused fingers on his uncomfortably warm neck. The plastic of the collar clung to his skin as Mark removed it, setting it on the side table, and taking Marzia’s place in the chair opposite Jack’s.

“Is it really you?” Jack asked weakly. “You haven’t been...reprogrammed, or brainwashed, or...”

“I’m fine, Jack. I don’t know how I could possibly prove it to you, but I’m okay. No reprogramming, no brainwashing. I hope you can take me at my word, for once.” Mark chuckled. “You never believed anything I told you unless you saw it for yourself. Like you didn’t trust that I was telling you the truth or something. But I swear to you, I am the same person that disappeared, albeit a little taller, a little stupider, and more scarred.” He scratched at the bottom of the scar idly.

They sat in silence for a moment. Jack didn’t even know where to start. How had Mark managed to escape the explosion? Why the hell was he working for the ILA? And, if Mark had escaped, how many of the 21 had escaped with them? How many were here?

“There was a payoff, you know,” Mark started quietly, saving Jack the trouble of trying to figure out what to ask. “That’s why the security around you and Signe was so bad. There’s a government payout as comp for the loss of agents. The Moldovans managed to intercept the money before it got to the GPB. Don’t ask me how: honestly, it seems like they’re fucking wizards sometimes.” Mark picked at the skin on his arm, a nervous tick Jack recognized even after the two years Mark had been out of his life. “The ILA got half when the GPB’s agents...transferred. The Moldovans took the other half.  They pretended they were the UN and pretty much told the GPB that they weren’t getting any of the money because they couldn’t prove we were dead. No one was any the wiser about where the money had actually gone.”

Jack hadn’t personally investigated the scene of the explosion: he had been deemed an “emotional risk” and wasn’t allowed to go with the police and the team of agents. Robin had gone, though, and he’d told Jack in confidence that there were no human remains, mementos, or any other evidence that anyone was killed in the fire, as though all the agents had disappeared off the face of the Earth.

“Who are the Moldovans?” Jack asked. He had so many more questions, but he supposed he’d start with that one.

“The ILA was contacted by an anonymous source about bringing down the GPB three or so years back. They managed to trace the contact to Moldova, so we just call them ‘the Moldovans.’ They’re pretty intent on destroying the GPB, and they’ve been giving the ILA all kinds of support to help out.”

“Why?” Jack asked, trying to gather as much information as possible. Even at the Bureau, he’d been left in the dark about the disappearance of the 21 agents: anything he’d learned about the investigation he’d had to grill his friends for. “Why would they want to take out an agency with ‘protection’ in the name? And why are you helping them!?”

“The GPB isn’t as blameless as we were led to believe,” Mark started, sounding almost intimidated by Jack’s raised voice and accusatory tone.  “I-I’m not going to sit here and tell you the ILA is actually the good guy here: they have done some really bad shit, nobody’s denying that. But we both know life isn’t in black and white. The GPB—they’ve been lying to us from the start. Bribery, extortion, embezzlement, assassinations: they’ve been using us as errand boys and hitmen for the country with the highest bid. There were so many signs, and we’ve been sticking our heads in the sand, pretending they’re just coincidences or something.”

Jack’s jaw dropped. He’d been working for the GPB since he was 22; had he wasted 5 years of his life workings for crooks? “And the proof?”

“What did I say? Never could believe me about anything,” Mark chuckled, the scar on his face shifting, before falling back into a line. “The ILA has documents—search histories, text conversations, emails, call transcripts—that they’re debating bringing to the UN. Of course, if they do that, they’ll be digging their own grave, but Marzia says she thinks it’s worth it, especially if they can negotiate a deal with the representatives in exchange for the information. I don’t know what it was that made her want to try being the good guy for a change, but she really is trying, and the entire agency’s behind her.”

The world Jack knew was spinning, crumbling around him, and he didn’t know what was real anymore.

“I was requested to stay alive,” Jack said, needing to change the subject. “Who—”

“We did,” Mark replied simply.

“What do you mean? The ILA?”

“Not exactly,” Mark said, quirking a brow. “I mean _us_ , Jack.”

“The GPB agents?” Mark nodded, and Jack let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “So you’re not the only one.”

“Not by a long shot. There are 20 of us here: Tyler’s MIA, and the few of us that think he’s still alive haven’t found any sign of where he’s been or where he’s going. But, yeah, we’re all here. The ILA’s working on recruiting agents from the GPB: the more of us transfer over, the easier it’ll be for those who haven’t to trust the ILA. Worst case scenario, there’ll be less of us thrown in federal prisons for enabling collusion.” Mark leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. “They asked if we had anyone particular in mind, since we know the people at the GPB, and it was almost unanimous that we snag you next.”

Jack would be fisting at his hair if he wasn’t restrained right now. The most he can do is dig grooves into the soft wood under his fingers. “But what if I hadn’t been put on that mission?”

“There was no way you weren’t going to be Signe’s bodyguard, Jack. Keep in mind that you were one of the people breaking up human trafficking rings in Denmark: that was Marzia’s doing, through the Moldovans. Since Signe was working for us, she just had to show a preference for you. Nothing was coincidental here.”

Jack gaped in disbelief. “You mean I was given an assignment _a year ago_ so I would end up here? How far down does this go? And how much control do these Moldovans even have?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. Even some of the higher-ups at the GPB are probably in the dark. Sorry, Jack.”

A weighted silence filled the room. All of the information Jack had just been told was seeping into his brain, settling in his heart. He couldn’t claim to understand all of it, but he was only one man and this convoluted scheme was so much bigger than him. And, even beyond that, a man he’d thought was dead for two years, a man he had _loved_ , was sitting in front of him and telling him that everything he had assumed or thought he’d known was wrong. Jack thought he could feel tears behind his eyes and tried to will them away, but Mark had always been good at reading people.

“I know it can be a lot to take in all at once, especially when you’re so close to people at the Bureau. When I fir—”

“How did you escape?”

Mark blinked. “What?”

“The explosion: how did you get out? The entire building collapsed in on itself. You should’ve been crushed.”

“The ILA saved us. In fact, they had talked some of us before the whole thing went down, sort of teased at the information we could get if we went along with their plan. Three helicopters, dressed up to look like they were from different news networks. Those of us who knew what was going on managed to divide the group and get everyone to a pick-up zone. A ‘cloaking blanket’ from the side of the copters made sure no one knew we’d left the building. That’s when we were brought here, and briefed.” Jack could feel the tears in his eyes getting heavier and heavier. He tried not to blink and dislodge them. Mark gave him a concerned look. “Jack?”

Jack could feel his throat closing up, and the voice that spoke was broken and weak. “I thought you were _dead_.”

“We weren’t allowed to contact anyone," Mark replied sheepishly. "ILA didn’t want people tracing their whereabouts. Not even my mom knows I’m alive.” Mark took hold of one of Jack’s hand, rubbing the knuckles with his thumb. “But I wanted to tell you more than anyone. That I was okay, that everyone was okay. That I loved you, and missed you. That I was waiting.” He looked to the floor despondently. “It was a shitty two years.”

“You’re telling me,” Jack snorted, though he wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and stare at the wall until the world started making sense again.

“I’m not going to beg you to, you know, switch over. Mostly because you’ve probably already chosen and I still have some dignity.” Mark’s mouth turned up at the corners. “But I’m glad I got to see you again.” The look on the scarred man’s face added volumes to the simple words.

“Likewise,” Jack responded, hoping his own expression communicated everything he couldn’t bring himself to say. “See you on the other side.”

Mark smiled, and walked back towards the door behind Jack, brushing his fingers over Jack’s shoulder as he went. The turn of a knob, a small creak, then a hushed exchange of words. The door behind Jack closed yet again, and Mark’s soldering march was replaced with lighter, heeled steps.

Marzia came back into view, holding a pair of diagonal pliers. “Hold still,” she whispered, slipping the freezing cold metal under the zip-tie on Jack’s wrist and snipping it in half. “Wouldn’t want to pinch you.”

She worked quickly, and soon Jack had regained all his freedom of movement, with only some irritated red indentations on his wrists to show for his imprisonment. “I hope you’re not expecting a thank you,” he muttered disdainfully, rubbing his wrists.

“Of course not,” she chirped. “I am expecting a decision, however.”

Right. That was the whole reason Mark had come in to talk with Jack anyways: to try to convince him to switch allegiance. “So, what happens if I say yes? If I decide to become an ILA agent?”

“We stage your death. When the GPB comes in to check on you, we give Signe a story to tell about how someone came in and shot you before dragging you away, maybe throw in something about rape to make her more sympathetic. You don’t contact anyone from your past life until we get our situation with the UN solved, and we get rid of all the ways the GPB could contact you. You’ll work for us preparing for the UN meeting and, hopefully after that, redefining what my agency stands for.”

“And if I don’t?” Jack inquired, sitting up in the chair.

“We open a vein and give you a BZD. Anything you saw, said, or learned gets erased completely, and you go back to being Signe’s bodyguard. Eventually, Signe gets ‘re-captured’. Assuming you don’t get fired for failing to protect your witness, you go back to being the agent you were. Don’t disregard this option,” Marzia advised Jack blithely. “There’s a reason people say that ignorance is bliss. And, you know, I could always be lying through my teeth.” She smiled, showing off her pearly whites. “How much do you trust me? How much do you trust Mark, now that he works for my agency?”

Jack pulled at the strands of hair in front of his face. In his mind’s eye, he watched the scales of favor tip to either option in his head.

“Tick-tock, tick-tock. I’m going to need an answer, Jack.”

Behind him, the clock chimed. It was time to make a decision, and in Jack’s eyes, the choice couldn’t be more clear.  


**Author's Note:**

> "What? THAT'S the end?"  
> I know, I know, dear disembodied reader. You're unsatisfied with this inconclusive ending. Maybe you should have read the tags: then you would've known this was coming. First rule of AO3: ALWAYS read the tags.  
> Anyways, I want to see what you guys think Jack would do and why? Of course, I have my ideas, but I want to see another person's side.  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated. Thank you for reading and (as always) I hope you enjoyed the story!


End file.
